Review - China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh Okay, first some background. We're 100 years into the future after much upheaval that includes the collapse of the world's economy in the second Great Depression, a second American Civil War, and then the forming of the Socialist Union of American States.
This new government is helped along by China, which managed to reorganize itself faster than the rest of the world. After the sinister-sounding Great Cleansing Winds, which seems to have been the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, America settles into second-place along with the rest of the world all looking to China for direction.
Our story opens in New York City. Our hero Zhang is a 26 year-old American-born Chinese working as an engineering tech on a construction site. He has two big secrets. One, he's not really as Chinese as he looks. When he was in the womb, his Chinese father and Hispanic mother put their savings towards having him genetically modified to look like his father. This is because the ethnically Chinese have the best positions in society. Two, he's gay. This could bring him heavy disapproval in New York City or a bullet in the head in China.
In Chapter One, Zhang gets singled out by the gruff foreman Qian who wants to find a suitable Chinese husband for his daughter San-Xiang. Poor Zhang gets pressured into coming over for dinner. Then he's expected to take the girl out on dates. To make matters more awkward, San-Xiang has a malformed face due to a bone-disorder. While sheltered and naïve, she is smart and her interests center on Marxism. Zhang has no interest in politics. In Chapter One, he takes her to watch the kite races in which fliers practice a risky high-tech version of hang-gliding.
Chapter Two picks up with one of kite-fliers, a woman named Gargoyle. It takes her through a race and reveals her thoughts on life. What does this have to do with Zhang? Nothing, except that she has a conversation with him once. This is how the novel progresses: as a series of interlocking short stories. One chapter works through a situation in Zhang's life. The next introduces new people and new problems. The third returns to Zhang a year or so later.
In this way, we go with Zhang to a research station in the cold darkness of the Arctic Circle, to China to study engineering and to party with the gay underclass, to another part of China to apprentice with a daoist-engineer, and then back to New York City to consider job options. We also get glimpses into the lives of Martine and Alexi who are settlers on Mars; and re-connect with San-Xiang, now a pretty girl with her face fixed, but still naïve.
China Mountain Zhang is an interesting read even though, having been published in 1992, it feels a bit dated to me here at ObsidianBookshelf.com. As is traditional for literary science fiction, the sex and romance are reduced to occasional glimpses. But you do get a definite sense of that outsider viewpoint that a gay man would have in a repressive society.
This novel won the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award for science fiction that explores gender roles, and the Lambda Award for best gay-themed novel in the category of science fiction. It also won the Locus Award for best first science fiction novel, and was nominated for the prestigious Hugo and Nebula science fiction awards.
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